Free Market in The Boro has hosted another successful Saturday swap meet, where community members dropped off their gently used unwanted items for others to pick from, for absolutely no cost!
Think garage sale with no tags or Goodwill with no cash; at this monthly Free Market you can find clothes, books, toys, furniture, household goods and decorations generously donated by your local neighbors.
Charly Kinship, owner of Kinship Endeavors, is the main organizer behind the market, whose dedication to eco-friendly practices and sustainable education spreads beyond her storefront.
Kinship moved to Statesboro with her family from Athens, Georgia, where she and a group of other women worked to grow their local free market. She says Statesboro is a community that cares about its residents, and she knew it would be accepting of efforts to sustain and spread resources between the people that live here.
Local organizations like Freedom through Recovery, as well as private citizens bring items to the event and to Kinship’s store for the market. This month they collected an entire trailer worth of items to give away.
“The overall goal is to just keep stuff out of the landfill,” she said. Rather than waste more land to bury our garbage, Kinship wants to see that land used more resourcefully, such as for farming.
Going a step beyond reusing, Kinship is aiming to reduce garbage production all together by offering sustainably packaged, eco-friendly products at her store, where all of her inventory is sourced within 40 miles of Statesboro.
There are big transitions taking place at the store as well, to include the introduction of a creative studio which offers second hand art supplies, as well as bringing in a liquid-bulk refillery so customers can refill household/soap products without packaging waste.
Kinship recognizes that most people face challenges in sustainable living and she has extended her help to the community by hosting seminars, collecting compost and recyclables, and working with local farms like Hazelnut Pastures to learn more about natural homesteading processes. She says that events like Free Market in The Boro are natural by-products of emphasizing conscious consumerism and eco-sustainable practices.
Even if you don’t have any items to share, you are welcome to shop around the market. After the monthly market, all leftover items are redistributed to other organizations and donated to ReTails Thrift Shop and Christian Social Ministries.
“Sometimes there's one, two, three, four more chances that we can keep this stuff out of the landfill,” said Kinship.
On the second Saturday of each month, the market is open from 10 A.M. to 12 P.M.
Find more updates about the free market on their Facebook page or by sending an email to [email protected].
